Uncategorized

3 Common Growth Barriers for Small Business Owners

By March 28, 2018 March 29th, 2018 No Comments

If you own a small business, you definitely know that it’s a challenge unlike any other: running your own business means you’ve got to figure out finances, staffing, training, marketing & sales, growth, business law, production, operations, all of that. It’s a lot, and it’s hard. So, to better understand the challenges small business owners face, the Global Marketing Institute at Goldman Sachs conducted a broad-reach survey of small business owners. The aim of the survey was to collect and assess the most common pain points and barriers to growth.

The results? I’m guessing they won’t surprise you at all.

The top three growth-related pain points are these:

  1. Hiring
  2. Training
  3. Finances

BIG surprise, right? Riggghht.

To elaborate: 70% of small business owners reported that they struggle to find and retain skilled talent, which means a ton of time is burnt up just managing the hiring process. On top of that, more than 90% of business owners report spending significant amounts of time training in new hires. On the financial point, dramatically more small business owners are using retirement and personal savings to fund start-ups, and of those receiving small business loans, 70% report relying on their personal credit score to secure those loans.

Clearly, the road to growth is a challenging one for entrepreneurs and small business owners. But what’s to be done?

Goldman Sachs has a couple ideas. For one, they say, consumer financing should be more affordable and accessible. This could be done through a set of small business-specific lending regulations that would make it easier to secure start-up funding. On the training point, it could be beneficial to institute expanded tax credits for time spent training, and a training wage could be implemented for new employees as a way to lessen the financial impact of the onboarding process. As far as attracting and retaining talent, well, that one could prove to be a perennial challenge for many small business owners, but nailing down the training process can only help.

You can read lots more about Goldman Sach’s findings here,  but for now just remember: when it comes to the struggles of running a growing a small business, you’re totally not alone.

Leave a Reply

Get In Touch
Send us some info and we will get back to you!
Your Name:
Your Email:
Your Phone:
Your Website: